150 case studies … with live updates

"% Arabica is about my love for coffee, design, and seeing the world" says Ken Shoji, founder and CEO of % Arabica. Ken's story began in Tokyo, although I found him in Kuwait. "My father was the owner of a manufacturing and trading company, and together with his frequent business trips, they would take me overseas whenever possible – ultimately helping to inspire my love of multiculturalism, design, and architecture."

& Other Stories headquarters in Stockholm are surprisingly low-key. Located on a quiet street in a residential part of the city, it's a far cry from the vision of ultra-hip Swedish cool that H&M and its other brands seek to project on the world. Unlike Zara's portfolio of fashion brands that target different ages and attitudes, H&M's portfolio is more a collection of different lifestyle concepts. More interesting, and distinctive.

Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller, set up by two twenty-something friends, one a banker, the other the son of a diamond miner. Today they run a $25m business, across 77 countries, delivering finely crafted diamond jewellery direct to consumers through a luxury service that offers great value.

Aerofarms grow delicious, nutritious leafy greens and herbs without sunlight and soil. Crops get the perfect amount of moisture and nutrients misted directly onto their roots in a completely controlled environment. With patented technology, Aerofarms take indoor vertical farming to a new level of precision and productivity with minimal environmental impact and virtually zero risk.

Agua Bendita makes super-luxury handmade bikinis, inspired by their Colombian roots: gorgeous, sophisticated, and alive with colour and innovative fabrics. Catalina Álvarez and Mariana Hinestroza founded the brand whilst studying fashion, inspired by the scraps of brightly coloured fabrics discarded by Catalina's father's clothing factory. Nearly a decade later, their suits are seen in stores around the world and on celebrities on the beaches of the world. What makes them particularly special are the contributions of Colombian artisans, 700 single mothers with a passion for making beautiful clothes.

Amazon – A mission to become the world's most customer-centric business

Amazon, from Dash to drones, Alexa and Echo, uses technology to disrupt and redefine a range of adjacent industry, and then do it again, whilst adding new business models that create a convenient and personalised customer experience.

ARM designs the chips inside most of the world’s smartphones, and increasingly other devices, creating an ecosystem of research and innovation with its partners, and most of the world’s device brands as licensee customers.

Focusing on designing the very best apparel for serious runners and triathletes, Ashmei refuses to compromise. Combining the best fabric and production from around the globe, focusing on niche audiences who are prepared to pay more for their passion, outplays the mainstream brands.

Aspiration was born to be the financial firm for everyone. Because everyone deserves access to the best banking and investing products. Everyone deserves a financial partner they are confident they can trust. And everyone deserves to put their money in an institution that puts “good” ahead of “greed.” Profits are important. But what sets Aspiration apart is the belief that people are too. Our “Pay What Is Fair” fees mean we go to work every day committed to do great for our customers. And as a financial firm with a conscience, we are motivated by the mission to help you make money and make a difference at the same time.

Aussies love the outdoors, fresh and natural. So the farmers jumped on the milk floats and brought together the best of local, authentic produce from across the nation, ready to deliver direct to the door. The business model is lean and networked, taps current trends and builds community.

Ava is a venture-backed food technology startup based in San Francisco creating synthetic wine without grapes or fermentation by analysing the molecular profile of wines to recreate and even perfect them. Ava's mission is to recreate the experience of wine without having to recreate the process of traditional winemaking, making the great vintages available to everyone.

Babylon seeks to to democratise healthcare by putting an accessible and affordable health service into the hands of every person on earth. In order to achieve this babylon has brought together one of the largest teams of scientists, clinicians, mathematicians and engineers to focus on combining the ever growing computing power of machines with the best medical expertise of humans to create a comprehensive, immediate and personalised health service and make it universally available.

BeMyGuest is your gateway to Asia, in one sense an online marketplace of small travel companies from across the continent, but more importantly a traveller's guide to the most unusual, interesting and spectacular places in a largely undiscovered continent.

Supersonic flight has existed for over 50 years. Yet the Concorde of the 70s and 80s seems a distant memory, and everyone returned to jumbos and dreamliners. Until now. A breakthrough aerodynamic design, state-of-the-art engine technology, and advanced composite materials enable an ultra-fast airliner as efficient and affordable as business class in today's subsonic wide-body airliners.

James Watt and Martin Dickie were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominated the UK beer market. Sat in their local Scottish pub, they decided the best option was to brew our own. In April 2007 BrewDog was born.

“During my lifetime I have always nurtured a dream: useful work to achieve an important goal. I have always felt that business profit alone was not enough to fulfil my dream and a higher purpose was to be found”.

If you live outside of Asia, you’re about to get more familiar with the five-year-old internet news and video aggregator. Bytedance is already a household name in China, where its Toutiao information and content-recommendation service garners north of 120 million daily active users in the country. In early 2018 the Beijing-based company, with a valuation around $20 billion, started making bigger moves to crack into the world of mobile video, media and entertainment.

The concept was simple: Produce the best mattress possible at an affordable price, sell a single model, and deliver it quickly, for free, with a 100-day trial period. It worked: Casper had sales of $1 million in its first month. The company has since raised $70 million in venture capital, grown to 120 employees, and hit $100 million in cumulative sales in its first 2 years.

Frank Lampard was reluctant to leave his beloved Chelsea for any other English team. Like many star players in their final years, he chose America, joined New York City FC as they launched into the MLS. He started off well, too well actually, because soon the club's owners wanted him to play elsewhere, for their English club, Manchester City. Lampard had little choice, realising that he'd signed up to a network of clubs, rather than one. It symbolised the future of football.

CommBank's innovative products and services are all about helping you to achieve more - to find a better home, to travel the world, to serve your customers better, to grow your business faster - its about more than money, its about you.

We live in a world of glass – from tablets to televisions, high rise buildings to Google Glass. But glass breaks. Not if its made for gorillas. Corning has turned itself into an ingredient brand that even adds value to Apple.

Coursera, and other MOOCs, are on the verge of fundamentally disrupting education, knowledge and expertise, across the world. By moving the best university courses online, with a business model that allows universal access, they can be transformational on society, and the opportunities for everyone.

Crooked Media promises a no bullshit a no-bullshit conversation about politics where you can laugh, cry, scream, ridicule us daily, share your ideas, and hopefully decide that you want to help fix this mess too. That goes for Democrats who want to learn from our party’s mistakes (which is hard because things are so perfect), Republicans ready to hold Trump accountable (fingers crossed on that one!), and everybody, everywhere who’s been asking the same question: What do we do now?

Crystal gives you instant access to millions of personality profiles based on everything that can be found online about each person. You'll even find a profile of yourself. It then gives free communication advice for anyone you meet, showing how your personality relates to theirs, and how you can most effectively engage them, and more.

China's largest travel site, Ctrip, lets users book hotels, flights, and packaged tours around the world. In 2016, an estimated 250 million travelers used the site, making it the world’s second-largest online travel agent. (In 2015, the company booked nearly $50 billion in travel.) Ctrip now owns one of the world's biggest flight metasearch engines following its $1.74 billion purchase of the Edinburgh-based Skyscanner in 2016. And with its recent acquisition of several tour companies in the United States, Ctrip is forming itself into an online travel service that’s part aggregator, part booking platform, and part end-to-end tour operator. In November 2016, Jane Jie Sun became Ctrip’s CEO and director of the board.

A drone crashed on the White House lawn in January 2015. A month later, a drone delivered a 9.15-carat diamond ring to Zhang Ziyi, the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actress, in a marriage proposal engineered by Wang Feng, a rock star in China. Two months after, a drone deposited small amounts of radioactive waste on the rooftop of the Japanese Prime Minister’s office, as a protest against using nuclear power in the country. All three drones were made by Da Jiang Innovations (DJI).

Dalian Wanda Group was founded in 1988 and operates in four key areas: commercial properties, culture & tourism, e-commerce and department stores. In 2014, the company had assets of 534.1 billion yuan and revenues of 242.48 billion yuan. The company now operates 125 Wanda Plazas, 81 hotels (including 68 five-star hotels), 6,600 cinema screens and 99 department stores nationwide. Looking ahead, by 2020, Wanda aims to grow itself into a leading MNC with assets of 1 trillion yuan, annual revenues of 600 billion yuan and net income of 60 billion yuan.

Darktrace – The world's leading machine learning company for cyber security

Darktrace is the world’s leading machine learning company for cyber security, having developed AI algorithms that mimic the human immune system to defend enterprise networks of all types and sizes. Created by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System is the first non-consumer application of machine learning to work at scale, across all network types, from physical, virtualized, and cloud, through to IoT and industrial control systems. Installed as a self-configuring cyber defense platform, Darktrace continuously learns what is ‘normal’ for all devices and users, updating its understanding as the environment changes.

Deliveroo is an online food delivery company stretching form the UK across Europe to Dubai, Australia, and Hong Kong. Orders are placed through the Deliveroo website and then self-employed bicycle or motorcycle couriers transport orders from restaurants to customers.

Pixar creates the world’s most loved movies. Creating animations is relatively slow and costly, but with a focus on character building and incredible storytelling, the brand has created hit after hit. It’s creative process – based around ideas and stories – is a great model for any type of brand building and communication.

Dollar Shave Club delivers amazing razors and grooming products for ... a dollar a month. The provocative start-up cuts through an industry built on emotion-driven profit margins to showcase a new world of targeted relevance, disruptive innovation, direct selling, subscription pricing and viral communication.

EcoAlf was created by Javier Goyeneche in 2012 to realise innovation in recycled clothing. The idea for a truly sustainable brand was born from a deep frustration with the excessive use of the world’s natural resources and the amount of waste produced by industrialised countries - specifically by the fashion industry. But Ecoalf is more than a conscious clothing brand; it is a mission to create the first generation of recycled products with the same attention to quality, design and technical properties as the best non-recycled products in the market.

Instant access to technical and patient knowledge transforms the speed at which doctors can offer diagnosis and treatment. This results in improved decisions, delivering faster treatments, at lower costs.

Vital Buterin is a 22-year-old coder who created the fast-growing new cryptocurrency network Ethereal, and wants to use his technology to disrupt everything. Ethereum is a platform and a programming language that makes it possible for any developer to build and publish next-generation decentralized applications. Ethereum can be used to codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything: voting, domain names, financial exchanges, crowdfunding, company governance, contracts and agreements of most kind, intellectual property, and even smart property thanks to hardware integration.

Etsy – The world's largest maker market, bringing the world's most creative people together

Etsy has created given local artisans, and local markets a global reach, bringing together like-minded buyers and sellers as a passionate movement. The business model makes it fair and accessible to the smallest trader.

"Over the next decade, India will move from a cash-based, opaque economy ... to an economy that is digital, instantaneous, and where every citizen is not just on the grid but the quality of their families’ future will be materially better" says Bobby Bose, cofounder of Ezepay.

FanDuel is the world-leading online daily fantasy sports company, operating in one of the fastest growing sectors of the sports and entertainment industry. It has become a household name in the US and one of Scotland’s only two unicorn companies, valued at more than $1 billion. Since its launch in 2009, its been disrupting the fantasy sports industry and changing the way millions of people experience sports.

Fatherly is the fastest-growing parenting site on the web, targeting millennial parents who are entering the most inquisitive and acquisitive phase of their lives. Fatherly has already generated over 1bn video views this year, has been named Oprah's favorite website of 2016 and its success capturing the hearts and minds of young parents has been documented in Adweek, CNN, and others. Fatherly has also been nominated twice by the Webby’s as “Best Parenting Site on the Internet” in just its first year in existence. By focusing on dads as well as young mums, Fatherly’s able to capture both sides of the parenting market, provide differentiated content in a space oversaturated with “Mum” content, and hone in on a key insight that millennial parents increasingly share parenting responsibilities and purchasing decisions.

South Africa's FNB puts innovation at the heart of its culture. The bank’s innovative eWallet, hosted on your phone, acts as a hub for many other creative solutions to making money flow easier and faster.

In 1993, Markus and Daniel Freitag brothers first created their own brand of recycled products, Freitag, using Tarpaulins, inner tubes from bicycles and automobile seatbelts. Freitag brothers have seen commercial success in the global market; yet at the same time, they are in constant pursuit of sustainable business cycle.

GE is leading an industrial revolution in applying the “internet of things” to business processes and equipment. The challenge however is to make sense of the new possibilities in ways that capture the imagination of businesses and consumers.

"Women today have different needs than we have had in the past, but beauty companies haven't necessarily been the most reactive to that," says Emily Weiss who launched the skincare and cosmetics brand in 2014. "We wanted to create a very democratic movement, and the channels most fitting that goal were direct, digital ones."

Marcus Goldman was a German banker, businessman, and financier. He was born in Trappstadt, Bavaria and immigrated to the United States in 1848. He was the founder of Goldman Sachs, which has since become one of the world's largest investment banks. However the bank has started to change its own game, entering the consumer market with "Marcus by Goldman Sachs".

There are currently between 14 and 15 million cases of cancer reported globally each year. With such early detection Grail has the potential to save millions of lives in the future – before people even realise anything is wrong.

Graze is a London-based snack company which offers over 200 snack combinations - including nuts, small puddings, and porridge - through snack subscription boxes, an online shop and retailers. It expanded operations to include the United States in 2013, launching snacks into US retailers in 2016. In 2012, The Carlyle Group bought a majority share holding in the business.

Haier is a smart living home solution platform leading in the internet era. 100 million users in more than 100 countries, 24 overseas plants, 10 R&D centers, 60 distributors and 140 thousands retailers, the world's number one white good's manufacturer.

Heist believes that underwear can be an instrument of progress. While many industries understand today's world’s desire for autonomy, choice and freedom, women’s underwear has lagged behind. Effectively, all women are living in underwear inadequate to their time.

HelloFresh is on a mission to change the way people eat, forever. As the world's leading meal kit provider, they serve more than 13 million meals per month to over 1.3 million customers in 10 countries across 3 continents.

Hoya is a global med-tech company and the leading supplier of innovative high-tech and medical products. Hoya is active in the fields of healthcare and information technology providing eyeglasses, medical endoscopes, intraocular lenses, optical lenses as well as key components for semiconductor devices, LCD panels and HDDs.

Watson is an IBM supercomputer that combines artificial intelligence and sophisticated analytical software as a “question answering” machine. Its applications are complex, but almost endless. Most recently it acquired the assets of the Weather Channel, to become the world's most accurate weather forecaster. It is named for IBM's founder, Thomas J. Watson

Inditex group has built on the global success of Zara and its fast fashion, to develop a range of retail brands that carefully target adjacent market segments with distinctive and relevant fashions. As markets and trends evolve the portfolio gives the group strength and agility.

Michelle Phan is the world's most successful YouTuber with almost 9 million followers of her daily video posts. She has inspired women across the world through her beauty tutorials, and in making the right choices in a bewildering market. To help them she created Ipsy, where for $10 each month, subscribers receive a Glam Bag with deluxe samples and full-sized beauty products, showcasing the best products and stylists, but also commoditising their brands. Ipsy is now the world's largest online beauty community, and a fabulous example of influencer marketing.

748 million people worldwide lack clean drinking water. Bill Gates drank a glass of water made from human faeces, to showcase technology he said could provide clean water in the developing world. "The water tasted as good as any I've had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It's that safe," he said.

The idea for Jaunt originated in early 2013 when one of the founders returned from an amazing experience at Zion National Park. What if he could go back there for a brief jaunt, at any time, from any place? The emerging consumer VR industry provides the mechanism to travel to virtual worlds. Jaunt aims to put realism back into the virtual reality experience, lending an uncanny sense of presence never before possible with any other technology.

Le Pain stands out in a cookie-cutter world of standard formats as authentic and sustainable, human and communal. Whilst the world becomes anglicised, it’s great to see a little French on our streets, albeit Belgian.

If you’re going to set out to make the world’s finest dairy from a converted shipping container in the Bay of Plenty, it goes without saying you’re not taking the most conventional route. But conventions have never been something Lewis Road Dairy have been much of a fan of anyway.

Magic Leap's mind-bending "mixed reality" technology uses photonic wafer chips to manipulate light. It superimposes 3D generated images over real world objects, by projecting a digital light field into the user's eye. Founder Rony Abovitz says "the best way to describe it, is like dreaming." He has attracted $1.4bn funding from Alibaba and Google, and is currently signed up contracts with leading movie studios and game makers.

Whilst most of Armenia is long gone, the culture lives on through traditional recipes and incredible food that brings people together to share incredible food, and explore the stories that sustained a nation, and now still inspires a global tribe.

MeUndies is a lifestyle brand that is transforming the way people perceive and purchase their basics. As a vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer company we do it all: from design and manufacturing, to marketing and web design & development, to fulfillment and shipping, MeUndies delivers "The World's Most Comfortable Basics" with a relentless emphasis on quality and service.

Momondo was founded in Denmark in 2006 and is headquartered in Copenhagen. As of 2016, the company has more than 200 employees from more than 30 nationalities. When Momondo was first launched in September 2006, it was a flight search engine only. It's inspirational travel blog was launched in 2007. In the same year, the company launched a series of city guides called Momondo places. Momondo is perhaps most famous for its DNA Journey advertising epic that made people rethink about their connectedness in today's world.

Moven is a digital financial manager designed around the mobile consumer, making banking and life easier, and through a range of easy and fun analytics, embracing games and social media, and even makes you a rockstar!

You might credit George Clooney with much of Nespresso’s brand appeal. But the money is in the pods. Whilst the coffee machines are sold at minimal prices, it is the addiction – or subscription – to the refills that drives profits.

Netflix grew out of consumer frustration with the stupid rules of an old model. This provoked one guy into creating a better solution, which has continued to evolve in format and business model as new technologies emerge, and competitors catch up. The next horizon of data-driven content creation is perhaps most intriguing.

The Horizons Group is a small team within the UK's National Health Service (NHS) that uses radical thinking to explore change and transformation in health and care. It aims to support colleagues in health and care to think differently about how effective change practice can lead to better outcomes for patients.

Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with more than 90 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care. It's innovation is patient-centric, focused on what it can be best at, and delivered by one of the world's most sustainable companies.

From a revolutionary idea a Swiss running shoe has evolved that is still amazing the sporting scene. The On provides a new running sensation, and one that puts fun firmly centre-stage. Born in Switzerland seven years ago, On has become the fastest growing global running brand with offices in Zurich (Switzerland), Portland (USA) and Yokohama (Japan).

One Medical Group challenges the notion that delivering high-quality, accessible health care is either unachievable or prohibitively expensive. In fact, we’re working to prove that just the opposite is possible — a system where quality care is affordable and available to everyone. To bring this vision to life, we rely on people-centered design, smart application of technology, and a team of talented primary care providers who have the time and tools to make the right decisions. The integration of these elements allows us to offer a seamless experience that not only saves our patients time and money but also leads to better health outcomes and happier lives.

Airbus, Bharti, Coca-Cola and Virgin are just some of the investors who have together pledged over $500m to create the world's first global satellite-based internet service. OneWeb is building a network of 700 satellites to take broadband access to every corner of our planet - including cars, aircraft, and homes in the most remote locations.

OSPS, also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region in Morocco, 10 km from the town of Ouarzazate. The entire Solar Project is planned to produce 580 MW at peak when finished and is being built in three phases.

Total project expected to cost $9 billion, and cover an area of 2,500 hectare. The plant will be able to store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, allowing for production of electricity into the night. Phase 1 comes with a full-load molten salt storage capacity of 3 hours. The planned Phase 2, due to open in 2017 and 2018 will store energy for up to eight hours.

Parkrun is a beautifully simple concept: turn up every Saturday and run 5km, or if you’re a junior: 2km every Sunday. Over a million people, every week. In Australia, in Russia, in South Africa. Across the world. It doesn’t matter how fast you go. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. What matters is taking part. It's free, simple and for everyone.

Explorer James Cameron is one of the entrepreneurs behind the asteroid mining company that plans low cost robotic space exploration to find commercial y viable asteroids near Earth. From these, they hope to extract precious metals and water (which can be converted to rocket fuel and oxygen).

Curation is a key role for retailer, editing and guiding in a world of infinite choice. Making sustainability positive, being better rather than less bad, being authentic and natural, softer or brighter.

As markets become more fragmented into specialist niches, the economics of local stores gives way to online platforms. With careful focus, small businesses can become global and profitable, without the costs of becoming big.

Cycling is a sport of connisseurs. They love their coffee, in France they love their pastis, and they love their bikes and gear. Riding in the heart of a Sunday morning pelaton is as much social as physical, and so Rapha designed to create premium cycling gear, and coffee shops – or Cycle Clubs – where enthusiasts can meet.

Red Bull changed the game of energy drinks. But it is much more than a drink, it’s a brand that reflects an attitude to life, and can therefore do more. In fact it has become a media company, with some of the world’s most extreme physical events, amplified as digital content. Not as a promotion for its drinks, but as the core business, with drinks on the side.

In the last five years, rewardStyle has fueled the arrival of a new influence on the retail industry: professional content creators. By providing the technical tools and education necessary to empower a global army of 9,000 premium content creators, it is now making a tangible impact on global e-commerce sales. In 2015, their publishers drove over $475 million in retail sales. It has redirected the style publishing industry and contributed to the professionalization and financial independence of thousands of publishers worldwide, enabling them to earn meaningful revenue on their digital content, ultimately empowering them to create and grow small businesses into international brands. Today, it is a global business. Nearly 200 team members work from offices in Dallas, San Francisco, New York, Shanghai and London.

Riot Games – League of Legends is reinventing the world of gaming, and the world of sport.

In a world where real sports are challenged by online gaming, attention spans fall from a 2 hour movie to a 10 second snapchat, lying in your bedroom but still seeking the thrill of the partisan crowd ... Riot Games is the answer to your millennial prayers. Each game demands 30 to 60 minutes of players' undivided attention. The average player spends 30 hours a month on the game ... that's three billion player-hours each month

Room to Read – Getting millions to learn: taking a local approach to teaching and learning literacy skills

Room to Read is an inspiring not-for-profit organisation, seeking to build literacy and gender equality, particularly in Africa and Asia. The program employs local authors to write children’s books in the mother tongue.

A stock market flotation was the catalyst for Sonae to diversify its business into many new categories. Innovation lies at the heart of Sonae's vision for improving life. Most important platform for this is Sonae's Continente retail brand which has recently extended across Europe, and also take its own-label brands into other retailers in order to go further faster.

Spotify grew out of deviant behaviour – imitating the actions of illegal downloaders to find a legal business model which combines free access with the ability to also make money as a business, and for artists and publishers. The brand is contagious, driven by consumer collaboration, and staying topical.

Square’s insight came from the millions of small businesses who lose sales because they cannot accept credit cards. Empowering first the retailer, and the consumer, Square had to fight to change the rules of the market.

StoreDot’s ‘FlashBattery’ system seeks to revolutionise how quickly people can charge their electronic devices. The system relies on an entirely new Lithium ion battery structure, which uses innovative compounds synthesised in its labs to dramatically reduce charging time.

68% of milk in India is adulterated with water, detergent powder or worse products. Supr "direct to home connect" removes all middle men involved thereby ensuring that the milk your family drinks is not tampered. Milk, bread, eggs, curd, paneer, coconut water, dosa batter, buttermilk and many more daily needs. Many customers plan their entire week the the online schedule, easily setting all your daily needs on auto pilot.

Supreme is a skateboarding shop turned clothing brand, created by James Jebbia as a small company in downtown Manhattan and quickly became a designers dreams. Thanks to collaborations with top brands as diverse as Louis Vuitton, Nike, and Kermit the Frog, Supreme is the brand people want to be wearing.

Even celebrities like Cara Delevingne and DJ Khaled are fans. Consumers will spend crazy sums to get their hands on limited edition collaborations like the Supreme Louis Vuitton Bag (which resells on eBay for $4,000 - $15,000), and always post a picture of it on Instagram (the brand has 6 million followers).

There’s a smarter, better way to fly in Europe. Since 2013 Surf Air has delivered all-you-can-fly subscription air travel between key cities in California, and now its taking off in Europe, with the same revolutionary unlimited travel business model.

Vicky Tsai was sitting at her Merrill Lynch analyst desk watching 9/11 as it happened. It made her realise that there must be a better world. She started to explore the world, culture, and spirituality. She was taken by Asian culture, and in particularly the secrets of the Japanese geisha. Tatcha was born to share the geisha's wisdom with modern women everywhere, and to further the belief that true beauty begins with the heart and the mind.

Germany's favourite coffee brand, has spread its retail concept across the world, offering everything from flowers to mobile phones, with a constantly changing range. Pop in for a coffee, and to see what's new!

Tesla is the fastest, sexiest, most-hyped car of its generation. It can drive 1000 km on a solar powered battery, with zero carbon emissions, whilst also becoming the must-have luxury accessory in Hollywood.

The East India Company was the world's first multinational company, dominating world trade for centuries. It made a wide range of elusive, exclusive and exotic ingredients familiar, affordable and available to the world; ingredients which today form part of our daily and national cuisines. Today it continues to develop and market unique and innovative products that breathe life into the history of the brand.

Threadless was one of the first crowdsourced brands, recognising the power and passion of user-generated designs. Voting and limited availability keeps people coming back to the site, from which a vibrant community has developed, engaging people physically and online.

Toms is a brand with purpose, and a dual business model – inspired by the simple canvas shoes of Argentina – it gives away a free pair away to street kids for every pair it sells. “One to One” has become a worldwide movement, and now stretches beyond shoes.

TransferWise was born of frustration. Sending money abroad is deceptively expensive, thanks to the hidden charges we’ve all been forced to pay. The banks claim “free money transfers”, “0% commission.” Sounds like money’s already flowing freely, but far from it. It’s pure propaganda. TransferWise says it "removes all the wrongness", letting people send money abroad at the lowest possible true cost. Using only real exchange rates and tiny not-hidden-fees. Headaches averted, and a revolution sparked.

Umpqua reimagined the banking experience around customers, inspired by parallels such as Gap and Starbucks. A passionate focus on people and service has created a digitally-enabled physical experience like no other.

It started with a simple plan to make a superior T-shirt. A shirt that provided compression and wicked perspiration off your skin rather than absorb it. A shirt that worked with your body to regulate temperature and enhance performance.

Vice was launched in 1994 as a "punk zine" and has since expanded into a leading global youth media company with bureaus in over 30 countries. It includes the world’s premier original online video destination, a network of digital channels, a television production studio, a magazine, a record label, an in-house creative agency, a consumer insights team, and a book-publishing division.

Kate Unsworth's favourite words are banana and martini. She is a maths grad and part-time model, who has embraced a millennial mindset for business, and also a love of technologies that are thoughtful, human and fashionable.

Vinomofo is all about good wine, real people, and the most epic wine deals on the planet. Founded by André Eikmeier and Justin Dry in 2011 from an Adelaide garage, the business sources and sells wines that they drink and they think members will love too. “We represent a revolution against the bowties and bullshit of the wine snobs and posers who think wine is for the chosen few elite and educated. It’s not. We think everybody should be able to enjoy good wine, without feeling intimidated”

The space race is on, to provide regular affordable flights for business, research and tourism. And whilst the development has not been without problems, Virgin’s vision, determination and spacecraft design, promises to go where others haven't, or at least from London to Sydney in one hour.

"Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: glasses are too expensive. We were students when one of us lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. The cost of replacing them was so high that he spent the first semester of grad school without them, squinting and complaining. (We don’t recommend this.) The rest of us had similar experiences, and we were amazed at how hard it was to find a pair of great frames that didn’t leave our wallets bare. Where were the options?"

In May 2008, Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey established GreenDesk, an "eco-friendly coworking space" in New York City. In 2010, Neumann and McKelvey sold the business and started WeWork with its first location in New York’s SoHo district. WeWork provides shared workspace, community, and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups and small businesses. WeWork designs and builds physical and virtual communities in which entrepreneurs share space and office services and have the opportunity to work together. The company’s 30,000+ members have access to health insurance, an internal social network, social events and workshops, and an annual summer retreat.

Xiaomi saw its smartphone sales sink in 2016 due in part to its ramped-up competition with Huawei and BBK. But the company has seen remarkable international growth

It sold 2 million devices in India in fall 2016—and hopes its sleek new Mi Mix and Mi Note 2 smartphones will reignite sales in China. Xiaomi is also working to upend the narrow perception of its brand: The company’s wide-ranging hardware offerings include everything from headphones and fitness bands to tablets and power strips and water purifiers. In 2016 alone, it introduced its first laptop, a set-top box, a robot vacuum, a smart rice cooker, a $29 VR headset, a quadcopter drone, and its MiJia electric scooter, among a slew of other ventures.

Xiaomi aims to become an internet of things powerhouse through its investments, so far, in 77 companies, which can tap into Xiaomi’s resources, supply chain, and growing retail presence online and off (Xiaomi opened three-dozen brick-and-mortar stores this year, with hundreds more in the pipeline) to scale up faster. The company believe this portfolio approach—which doesn’t involve hiring engineers to build all these products—will create an ecosystem of devices and services with recurring revenue streams.

Kiwi fruit are a great example of market creation. Zespri, owned by New Zealand growers, shows how to build premium brands that increase the market size, whilst also capturing disproportionate value, and what might otherwise be a commodity market.

Zhong An – China's first online insurance brand, with a quirky approach to selling

Ping An, Tencent and Alibaba joined forces in 2013 to launch Zhong An, China’s first truly digital insurer. Zhong An is China’s first property insurance company that sells all its products online along with handling claims.

Zidisha is a non-profit organisation that matches African entrepreneurs with peer to peer loans from around the world, keeping interest rates low by cutting out intermediaries and using simple technology.

Zuvaa launched in 2014 as an online destination of African Inspired fashion and accessories.Kelechi Anyadiegwu started the fashion business to fill a void which she saw in the African Fashion Industry, a place for affordable, ethically made, African-inspired pieces.